


Specimen B-xrn1

by Never_Eat_Sour_Wheat



Category: Half-Life
Genre: Aliens, Background Character Death, Experimentation, Gen, POV Second Person, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:08:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28780254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Never_Eat_Sour_Wheat/pseuds/Never_Eat_Sour_Wheat
Summary: Your name is Benjamin Alessi. Your mama named you that on the day your mom found you. She liked to tell you that story. The story about how you were a baby that came from the stars, that when your mom found you you were a mass of something completely nonhuman. That when you saw her, you shifted to look like her, as much as you could. That she picked you up and brought you home and that your moms agreed to keep you and to keep you safe. Your mama told you that your name was important, no matter how you chose to change it. At the time, that meant you were called Benny.Now it means that you’re called Specimen B-xrn1.
Relationships: Benrey & The G-Man (Half-Life)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 39





	Specimen B-xrn1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a blurb from a pre-canon au I have! I'm on the fence with writing a full thing for it, but I wanted to do a little thing at least and see if people would be interested. I hope you enjoy this, and let me know if you'd want to see more of the au!

Your name is Benjamin Alessi. Your mama named you that on the day your mom found you. She liked to tell you that story. The story about how you were a baby that came from the stars, that when your mom found you you were a mass of something completely nonhuman. That when you saw her, you shifted to look like her, as much as you could. That she picked you up and brought you home and that your moms agreed to keep you and to keep you safe. Your mama told you that your name was important, no matter how you chose to change it. At the time, that meant you were called Benny.

Now it means that you’re called Specimen B-xrn1.

Everyday they wake you up way earlier than you want to be woken up, and everyday it still surprises you. It’s been almost five years now, but it still surprises you. They drag you out of the little room they stick you in every night, and they shove you down one of the hallways. You never see anyone new, it’s always the same scientists every day. You sometimes wonder if that’s because a new scientist wouldn’t like what they do to you. For all extents and purposes, you look human. You act human, you sound human, you know what humans know. You just hear things that humans shouldn’t, and your insides are different, and sometimes your eyes change. 

Your mama used to say it made you special, and she was right. But it was also the reason she homeschooled you, and the reason that your only friend was the kid down the street that didn’t mind getting muddy on the river bank.

Today, they shove you into an examination room. It's a clean one today, so you go and sit on the little, sterile table. A couple minutes later, three scientists come into the room. One of them sort of looks like your mom, and you try to still your hearts. Your mom wouldn’t do this to you. She loves you. She tried to hide you, even as the government tore down your door.

You should have listened to your friend when he said that he wasn’t allowed to swim. You shouldn’t have pushed him to. If you’d left him alone, he wouldn’t have gotten carried away, and you wouldn’t have had to push the water aside to reach him. You were sad that he’d passed out then, but now you’re glad. Now he won’t be interrogated. The scientists like to remind you of how your moms were. You aren’t sure if it’s true, though. Some of them say your moms cried for you, and some of them say that your moms didn’t care at all that you were gone. You know they’re trying to manipulate you. 

You don’t know which one works better. 

You sit on the examination table for what feels like fifteen minutes, but you know is really hours. It only feels so short because they’ve already done this a million times. Nothing ever changes. You still have three hearts, you still have eyes that are seated like a predator and glow to match. You still don’t know the answers to any of the questions they ask you about your species. As far as you’re concerned, you’re a human, even if you don’t look exactly like you mom, or your mama, or your friend from down the street, or the scientists around you. They finish their tests, and they leave you on the examination table. A few moments later, a large glass tube comes down, covering the table and you on top of it. They do this whenever they want to show you to someone new. It’s only happened twice, once with a scientist that was in here today, and a scientist you never saw again but heard rumors about.

They think you can’t hear them through the glass.

You can.

“There’s no denying it’s an amazing specimen, sir,” the lead scientist says as he steps into the room. You never liked him. He’s always so mean, and he looks at you like you’re a piece of meat that he’s just waiting to rip apart.

A tall man in a suit steps in after him, and you’re as shocked to see him as he is to see you. You have no idea who this man is, but he carries himself with so much authority that he reminds you of your friend’s principal that he never liked. You wonder if you’ll like the man in the suit, but you don’t bet on it. “What exactly… is it?” The man asks.

“The thing is, we have no idea,” the lead scientist replies. He’s holding a stupid clipboard, but he’s not writing anything down. He probably has it to read off of, and you think that he’s stupid, since he can’t even remember enough of a speech to tell this guy what they think you are. “We know it’s extra terrestrial in nature, but other than that, we’re clueless. It seems to be similar to the dead samples we have from Xen, but it’s much more… human appearing. It even passed for eight years as one.”

“Is that so…” The man in the suit asks.

The lead scientist looks nervous, and you’d smirk at him, if you didn’t want them to know that you can hear them. “Y-yes. It was living in a home with two women, and they were under the impression that it was their child, although they admitted that they knew it wasn’t human.” The man in the suit’s nostrils flare in anger, and you decide that you do like him. “They wouldn’t tell us where or how they found it, just that it was eight years ago.”

The man in the suit leans in closer to get a better look at you. You blink at him, owlishly, and he blinks back, much slower. It makes you feel comforted, although you don’t know why. “They had it for… eight year, and never alerted… anyone?”

“No,” the lead scientist says. “They kept it in their house as much as possible too. Their big mistake seems to have come from letting it near a river that children played in. It saved a child from drowning, so it seems to understand mortality and dangers to humans. The child was unconscious by the time it brought them back, so we weren’t able to question them about how it did what it did. Only a handful of older children saw, and they fled the scene in understandable fear. They all told stories with variations, but the underlying message seemed to be that it can manipulate its environment around it.”

“Fascinating…” The man in the suit says. He leans in even closer and does the slow blink again. You return in this time, trying to tell him that you understand without actually saying anything.

“It's capable of human speech, but it refuses to engage in any way that would be helpful,” the lead scientist adds. “It won’t tell us anything about where it came from or the society there. We’ve assumed it’s from Xen due to the similarities of the previously mentioned specimens, but we can’t know for sure.” The man in the suit hums instead of answering, and he stops bending down to get closer and steps closer instead. “We… sir, why are you getting so close?”

“I’m simply… testing something,” the man in the suit says. He blinks quickly at you this time, but you return with another slow blink. You trust him. You want him to understand that.

The lead scientist steps closer too, and you catch a glimpse of his clipboard. You can’t see anything besides “Specimen B-xrn1” and the date on it. He’s saying something as you make out the date, and the man in the suit jerks backwards just as you realize what the date is.

“oh,” you say to yourself, although you don’t realize you’re saying it aloud, “it’s my birthday.”

Both men turn to look at you, and you look back with wide eyes. They don’t like it when you talk without being asked a question. “I-it must have read my clipboard,” the lead scientist says. “It seems to be able to read English, and-”

“Can it… hear us?” The man in the suit asks.

“No, it can’t, it-”

“yeah,” you say. The lead scientist jumps, but you’re more focused on the man in the suit. He’s looking at you like you’re a person, and it makes you want to cry. “hi.” 

“Hello,” he replies. He looks you up and down one more time. “How old are you… today?” He asks.

“i’m thirteen,” you reply. It doesn’t feel real, but you’ve been keeping track as best as you can in a place that doesn’t show days or nights, and doesn’t give you a calendar. “what’re you doing here?” You ask him.

He doesn’t answer, but he does give you another slow blink. You slow blink back, and he smiles every so slightly. You grin back, showing off your sharp teeth, but he doesn’t flinch. He takes the lead scientist by the shoulder and starts to lead him out of the examination room. You hear him say something about dissection, and your blood runs cold. Well… colder. Your mama was teaching you about biology before they took you away, so you know what it means. 

You don’t want to be dissected. You want to see your mama and mom again. You want to see your friend again. You even want to see the big kids that used to make fun of you again. You want to go to a normal school, and you want to have your first crush, then your first kiss, then your first… partner, and live a life, a normal human life. You want to leave, you’ve wanted to leave for so long. You stand and go to the glass, but there’s a sound outside the room before you can do anything. You can only faintly hear it, since you aren’t supposed to be able to hear it at all, but you know what it is.

It’s screaming.

You sit on the floor next to the examination table, and you curl up. You don’t know what they’re doing to the man in the suit, but you know it isn’t good. There was screaming when the second scientist left the room. The rumors about what they did to him are true, you saw the aftermath when they took you back to your little room. You curl up tighter as more and more people scream. You don’t know if you’re making it up, or if the man in the suit is stronger than the scientist and it’s taking more people to kill him. You just sit next to the examination table and let yourself cry. Just a little. You need to stop before the scientists come back. 

The door to the room opens, and the tube around you starts lifting as well. You scramble to get back on the table, knowing that they don’t like it when you sit on the floor, but you only get as far as standing up before the person who entered is in front of you. You stare at the man in the suit as the tube lifts back up into the ceiling.

“Hello… again,” he says. 

“hi,” you reply. You don’t know what to say.

The man in the suit is covered in blood, but he doesn’t look injured. He looks down at himself when he notices that you’re staring, and he shakes his head. “I… forget how dirty my job can… be,” he says. He snaps his fingers and his suit is clean again. You gawk at him for a moment, and he chuckles quietly. “Tell me, young… man, what is your name?”

“B-xrn1,” you reply. 

“No, your… name,” he says. “The name that your… mothers gave you. I can’t imagine that they… kept you for eight years and didn’t name… you.”

“Benjamin,” you reply. It feels good to say it again. It feels like you’re a person again. “Benjamin Alessi. are you going to take me home?”

The man in the suit smiles at you again, but it’s sad. “I’m afraid that I… can’t,” he says. You nod and look down, but his hand is tilting your head up again a moment later. It doesn’t feel bad when he touches you, and he slow blinks again to calm you down. “However, I am not going to leave you here. You will… be coming home with me. You can live there for… as long as you would like. I understand that I am certainly not your mothers, but… I hope that I can help you in… some way.”

You stare at him for another moment, before you nod. He smiles again and lets go of your chin to offer you a hand. You take it, and follow him out of the room. He seems to realize that you’re going to see the blood and carnage a moment too late, but you don’t bat an eye. “i’m used to it,” you tell him as you walk through the room to the hallway.

“You… shouldn’t be,” he replies.

“i know.”

He doesn’t press beyond that, and the two of you walk through the hallways that you’re used to. There’s more blood and guts, but you still don’t bat an eye. They had it coming, and you won’t miss them. You do dig your heels in when he tries to pass your room. He turns to you with a questioning look, but lets go of your hand when you go to the door. You know it won’t open unless a scientist does it, but it opens without you or anyone else having to touch it. You glance at the man in the suit, and he’s lowering his hand like he did something. You don’t bother to think about it for more than a second before you step into your room. It’s sterile white, and boring, but there’s a loose tile in the floor in the corner of the room that you pry open. You pull out the few things you were able to keep from the scientists. A small stuffed bear, a chullo hat, and a few pictures. The one of your moms and you is your favorite. You don’t remember who took it, but you do remember the park they took it in. You were much younger then, and you hadn’t started showing any signs of not being human then, so you could go to that park. You glance at the one of you and your friend that he took with his mom’s camera with the timer, and the one that you took of your moms that’s so blurry no one would know what it was if you didn’t remember the moment. 

“Are these… your mothers?” The man in the suit asks. He’s leaning over your shoulder to look at the pictures, and you instinctively press them to your chest to hide them. A moment later though, you remember he isn’t a threat, and you hand them over. You don’t need to answer his question for him to know. He raises an eyebrow at the picture of you and your friend, but doesn’t say anything as he gives the pictures back. “They are… beautiful.”

“thank you,” you whisper. You always thought your moms were the most beautiful women in the world, your mama especially. “are we going to go to your house?” You ask as you pull your hat on.

“Yes,” the man in the suit says, “and you will meet… my son. He is a couple years older than you, but he is… very kind. I am sure you two will… get along.”

You nod and take his hand when he offers it to you again. “what’s your name?” You ask, because you really don’t want to have to call him “the man in the suit” to his face.

“My name is… G-Man,” he says, “but you can call me… Mr. Coolatta, if you’d… prefer.”

You stick your tongue out in disgust, and he chuckles. “i’m gonna call you G-Man,” you tell him. “you can call me Benny. that’s what my moms called me.”

“Then… I’m afraid I can’t call you… that,” he replies. You frown, but somehow you understand why he can’t even if you can’t put it into words. “How about… Benrey?”

You think it over for a minute, before you nod. “okay,” you say. “i’m Benrey.”

He smiles at you and squeezes your hand. “Excellent,” he says. “Now… hold onto my hand tightly, and… prepare for some… turbulence.” You nod, not questioning it, and then the air around you feels funny for a moment.

The barely working security cameras in the room pick up a man in a suit and a young alien specimen disappearing suddenly. Despite Black Mesa pouring over possibilities of where their specimen could have gone and who could have killed all their scientists working on the Xen project, the footage is overlooked.

Benrey and the G-Man left Black Mesa, and they won’t be back for many, many years.

But a young man will have a father for a very, very long time.


End file.
